


you can't make homes out of human beings

by buries



Series: [challenge] kink bingo fills [6]
Category: The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Blood Kink, Choking, Community: seasonofkink, Community: trope_bingo, Cuckolding, Dark, Dark Klaus Mikaelson, Double Penetration, Dubious Consent, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mind Control, Multi, Naked Female Clothed Male, Physical Abuse, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Post-Episode: s02e22 As I Lay Dying, Protective Katherine Pierce, Protective Stefan Salvatore, Ritual Sex, Sharing a Bed, Spitroasting, Stockholm Syndrome, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:48:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26659222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buries/pseuds/buries
Summary: Klaus never gives his blood to cure Damon’s werewolf bite. He keeps his precious Ripper and Katerina as his prizes and sets off for greener pastures.Stefan accepts his fate. Of course, Katherine fights back.[ au on post-2x22. | dark fic. ]
Relationships: Katherine Pierce/Stefan Salvatore, Klaus Mikaelson/Katherine Pierce, Klaus Mikaelson/Katherine Pierce/Stefan Salvatore, Klaus Mikaelson/Stefan Salvatore
Series: [challenge] kink bingo fills [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1920490
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36
Collections: Season of Kink, Trope Bingo: Round Fifteen





	you can't make homes out of human beings

**Author's Note:**

> i’ve been wanting to write klaus/katherine/stefan for a while now and decided to take the plunge and try and do it. this story was my experiment in writing very different content to what i'm used to and the way i write. this is pretty much porn with very, very little plot. 
> 
> i based this off of klaus’ tvd characterisation and his darker inclinations as discovered in his _the originals_ storyline. this is from katherine's pov and klaus is very much a villain in this (something i quite enjoyed of his character in season 2 of tvd!).
> 
> this is an au on 2x22 and season 3 where damon and elena are dead. 
> 
> i wish season 3 had a focus on this trio, as promised by klaus when he said he and stefan would hunt down katherine. i also wanted to explore the fact that stefan did try to better himself with his blood addiction and give him some agency with that. katherine also tried to stand up for stefan in her own way in 2x22, which is something i feel is severely overlooked.
> 
>  **content warnings** : this does contain dubious consent, mind control, implied stockholm syndrome, references to grief, references to ptsd and past trauma/abuse, physical abuse, mental and sexual manipulation, character death and implied character death.
> 
> this was written for seasonofkink's "aphro/altered mental states" and trope bingo's "dark fic." 
> 
> title from warsan shire. this is unbeta’d, all mistakes are mine. thanks for reading. ♥

She thinks Stefan should’ve known better when Klaus had said he had his _favourite doppelgänger._ It was never Elena. She never ran for the hills and gave him a five hundred year game of chase.

Stefan is a slow learner.

Klaus smiles and licks the blood from the corner of his lips. He eyes Stefan as blood stains his chin and neck as he stares blankly at Katherine as Klaus talks and talks and _talks._

Doesn’t he realise he’s just damned himself? Katherine can see it unfold before her: Damon was never going to be saved. Klaus had always enjoyed his Ripper, and while she can see the cogwheels turn in his head on whether or not he should just compel his best friend out of the broken man before him, he doesn’t. Klaus likes broken things.

"I’ve had Maddox deliver your brother his cure," Klaus laughs. Katherine doesn’t believe him, and her chest aches when she sees the relief break through the thick coats of blood staining Stefan’s face. "All is well. Your debt will be repaid in no time."

Klaus becomes white noise as she watches Stefan. She stares at him as he looks at her blankly, surprise slowly etching upon his features as he realises he’s just doomed himself to a vicious game of play.

*

Although Klaus promises he’d delivered his vial of blood to Damon to save him from the brink of death, Katherine doesn’t believe him. He doesn’t do charity. If he did, he would’ve given her at least her mother.

Stefan’s faith in Klaus’ blind and fractured word makes her hesitate in thinking he’s the bad guy after all.

Klaus leaves them alone—a common occurrence as he begins to make his plans to vacate Mystic Falls and build his beloved hybrid army—and Katherine finds she can finally breathe. Stefan seems to be struggling.

He sits on the couch and stares at the brick wall with the same dazed expression he’d worn when he realised he’d just signed his life away to the devil.

Katherine preoccupies herself with making a cup of coffee—she’s getting good at it, not like she has a choice—and comes to sit next to him when she’s made a cup and poured it down the sink. Her knee touches his.

"Do you think he did it?" He doesn’t look at her as he asks, almost afraid to remind himself of where he is and who he’s trapped with. It’s not lost on her this is the second time they’ve been trapped together.

Katherine shrugs and doesn’t look at him. "I don’t know."

"You’re the only person who knows him," he says. His hands clasp together tightly until his knuckles are white. His stare pierces through the walls she hides behind and Katherine shifts where she sits. He leans closer to her and repeats quietly and desperately, "Do you think he did it?"

She doesn’t know. She had thought she knew Klaus inside out, had insider knowledge none of them would ever be able to replicate… but she’s beginning to realise perhaps she has it all wrong. She doesn’t know Klaus, not in the way she had hoped. 

She shakes her head. "No." Katherine turns to look at him, body shifting against the couch. Her knee bumps into his roughly. "I think he’s dead, and I think you should turn it off."

Stefan rests his hands on his thighs and stares down at them like he can see the truth in the lifelines of his palms. When she peers down, she sees that they’re still stained with blood. Every morning, every lunch and every dinner, Klaus gives him a weeping blood bag to rip apart and burn his throat with.

She wills him to move. He doesn’t move. She doesn’t think he moves all night.

*

If he had asked, she’d do it willingly. But that’s the thing about Klaus: he doesn’t ask.

He prefers to play games. She learned this quickly in 1492, but she’d stupidly tried to learn the rules when there were none. Now, she simply bides her time and waits for him to make his move.

In his bedroom (which is really Alaric’s), she’s zipping up a dress with her back to him. She prefers to look at him head-on so she knows what to expect, but it’s improper of a lady to eye a gentleman when she’s trying to dress. 

"I’d like you to wear dresses, Katerina. It’s more suitable for a lady of your stature," he says with a smile. She can’t help but fall for it all over again, disarmed by the way his lips press up into his cheeks and his face brightens at the mere sight of her. He looks younger than he has any right to, and far more innocent than he is.

Sometimes, she thinks Klaus is a warlock. His charm oftentimes disarms her.

He picks them out for her like he had in 1492, bestowing them upon her like they’re some gift she needs to repay.

Sometimes he treats her like a doll he’s taken off the shelf after five hundred years. She used to remember his dresses, apparently tailored and commissioned just for her. Katerina had fallen beneath that spell and Katerina had risen from the ashes of those corsets realising that they were merely another gilded cage for her to be kept in.

As she begins to shed herself of the dress she wears after his approval, she notices how his eyes linger on her back as she steps out of it.

"What do you think I should give Ripper?" Klaus asks her as he watches her as she stands in front of the mirror with only her panties on. He sits on the armchair with his legs crossed and his elbow pressed against the armrest. If he felt like she was worthy of being painted, she knows he’d paint her.

She eyes him in the reflection, keeping her arms by her sides to show she isn’t afraid. 

"His freedom," she says. She stares at Klaus in the mirror. Despite the smile he wears, he doesn’t seem overly pleased. "Let him go and mourn his brother."

She used to be good at reading people. Or maybe the people she had played chess with were mere amateurs. She thinks Klaus takes her request into consideration, but she should’ve known better.

She’s wearing one of her new dresses, a dark emerald one he requests she wear and even helps her with the zip up the back, and stands beside her as they peer upon Stefan. His hand is on her back. It’s not lost on her he chooses the same green she’d worn when Elijah had given chase and Klaus had caught her instead. 

Klaus smiles at Stefan who peers up at him, his eyes stupidly wild with hope.

"Katerina thinks I should give you a gift." 

Stefan looks at her with confusion and she shakes her head, wanting to tell him to flee. But he can’t flee; he’s as trapped in this gilded cage as she is.

He feeds Stefan bags of blood, laughing and encouraging him to _take one sip more, mate, that’s it, that’s my Ripper_ and she sits and watches as Stefan does his best not to destroy himself.

*

Klaus gleefully feeds Stefan blood bag after blood bag for days. He wants him to embrace his true self, he wants that Ripper to peel off the layers of the good little boy and rise again from his cocoon where he slumbers. But with each blood bag, the Ripper gets pushed further and further down. Katherine knows it’s the loss of Damon that finally quells his rage and hunger.

Blood is potent in the air. Her mouth waters even though she’s not hungry. Stefan’s fingers, mouth, neck and clothes are stained. All Katherine feels compelled to do is clean him up. She sits beside Stefan for what feels like hours as he encourages himself noisily to take just one more sip, one more blood bag.

Stefan sits beside her on the couch with several empty blood bags squeezed and sucked dry piling up on the coffee table in front of them. Katherine wants to leave, but she can’t look away. If she looks away, she fails the girl she used to be. She never looked away.

He passes out on her lap, face and neck and hands drenched in blood. He stains her dress and thighs, but she doesn’t push him away. She glides her fingers through his hair and wipes at his cheeks with the side of her fingers.

Klaus perches himself on the coffee table before her, legs spread, hands clasped as he looks her straight in the eye. He looks pleased with himself despite his obvious failure.

"It’s either you or him."

Katherine knows what he’s asking. She knows that he’s opening the door for her, as courteous as ever, and allowing her to step through if she so much as wishes. He’d done it once before, but she hadn’t known the reasons for his courtesies. He’d opened the door to her living forever after her sacrifice once. 

She distinctly remembers a fuzzy memory, one that she knows had been compelled away. A little test of his own, to see if he really cared. He didn’t. Feeding her vampire blood before her sacrifice was never an option.

Katherine lifts her gaze to his. 

"You leave him alone."

She wonders if Stefan will still think she’s a manipulative, psychotic bitch who’s only in for it for herself.

*

When Klaus daggers Elijah, he leaves him ashen and dead on the floor of his kitchen. Katherine does her best not to stare, but she can’t help it. He lies still and hollow, lacking his usual commanding presence that makes no sense for who he is. He lacks the warmth and kindness he once bestowed upon her like a precious gift.

She feels uneasy and wants to run. If Elijah can’t help her, then no one can. It’s a thought she had five hundred years ago.

She wants to touch his face, but her wrist is tightly enclosed in the shackle of Klaus’ hand.

"Now that he’s out of the way, we can be on ours," Klaus says happily.

He presses his other hand into the hollows of her throat and lifts her off the ground. She’s slowly starting to get used to the pressure there. He kindly requests Stefan to sit, stay, and be quiet, and he compels her to be compliant.

Making her kneel over Elijah’s body, he fucks her as if to say _I won._

*

"You shouldn’t have come here," she says when they’re alone.

Stefan’s head is in his hands as he sits on the couch, trying to appear small. He aches all over—from the blood Klaus keeps hidden and taunts him with, from his dying brother, from her doppelgänger. She doesn’t think from her.

"My brother needed me."

 _Needed._ Katherine’s starting to dislike being kidnapped. Being out of the loop means she lacks the ability to comfort him, not that she was particularly good at that at all. She wants to believe that Damon is alive and her gut belief of him being dead is wrong. She’s happy to be wrong for once.

He lets out a shaky breath. She looks at the back of his head and the side of his face, and doesn’t need to peer at him too closely to know that he’s crying. She keeps her hands in her lap, trapped between her bare legs as she squeezes them there tightly to stop herself. She’s not Elena and she doesn’t want to be mistaken for her softness.

"Look at where that got you," she says, but it lacks any of the usual acid she’s come to coat her tongue with.

Tugging her hand free, she tentatively slides it around his shoulders. Stefan’s head is an unfamiliar and heavy weight in her lap as he falls to her.

Damon’s dead. Elena’s dead. Once again, her doppelgänger has what she wants.

Sliding her fingers through his hair experimentally, she hears him let out a puff of air. She says quietly, "You should turn it off."

Stefan shrugs. "I should." But doesn’t. Going out on a limb, she thinks he doesn’t for her. Katherine desperately wants to know why he won’t close his eyes and give in to it, but she’s afraid of the answer.

Stefan’s hands curl against her knee and he grips it tightly. "Did you love him?"

She peers down at the top of his head quizzically. "Who?"

"Elijah," he says, voice sounding muffled. He doesn’t lift his head. "Klaus. Damon."

"I loved them all in my own way," she says quietly. Glancing away from his hair, she keeps her fingers threading through his. 

"Did you love me?"

Katherine’s heart thumps hard in her chest. It’s not out of excitement or anticipation of what’s to come if she answers it honestly. She fears for him. She’s Klaus’ book, a mystery and riddle wrapped all up into one, and she knows that he likes the pages he’s flipping through eagerly now with him here.

But Klaus is gone, and the apartment could almost be considered one where there isn’t blood staining the wooden floors or the bedspreads and it’s not a prison where his grief echoes off the walls and she’s being tortured by the skeleton in her closet.

"I do."

*

Klaus commemorates their last evening in Mystic Falls by taking them to the site where he was born. It’s not his birthplace where Esther had cursed the world with him screaming and crying in her arms, but where he had been born as the hybrid.

She figures it’s poetic. This is the site where something in Stefan had died. And this is the ritual she lost who she was to escape.

The ground is dry and burnt, ashes remain from where the fire had encircled his three victims. Blood stains the stones where he had stood with each of them as they bled for him so he could have his ungrateful life.

Katherine watches as Stefan seems to stiffen. He hasn’t been able to release his tension since Klaus denied his request to leave. The blood still stains his lips. She can see Damon’s blood permanently colouring his hands.

Klaus looks up at the grey and darkening heavens with his arms wide and smiles. "Isn’t it beautiful?"

Katherine doesn’t answer. It’s a horrible site that feels hollowed from the inside out. Stefan’s gaze is downcast on the ground where Elena must’ve fallen.

Klaus steps towards her and takes her hand delicately, much like he did in 1492. He’d been covered in blood then, smug in response to her innocent curiosity and concern for him. His white shirt remains stainless as he walks with her to the stone altar, telling her that this had been her doing.

"One last sacrifice needs to be made, for old time’s sake."

He bites into her neck from behind, digging his teeth into the flesh of her neck. Katherine does her best not to cry out, although she winces. His lips are warm against her neck as his tongue laps at her blood. She can feel some of it trickle down her neck and dress. She does her best to keep her hands by her sides, not wanting to grip onto him for any false sense of hope.

Stefan stares at them like he’s seeing history repeat itself. 

Klaus’ hands palm her breasts as he holds her to him. He licks at her neck and bites her again, this time his fangs stinging. He snatches his hand from her breast to bite at his wrist and he shoves it against her lips. Katherine laps at his split skin hungrily, feeling that sting disappear.

He shoves at her and she falls to her knees, her hands feeling bruised from the stone beneath her. Klaus remains standing with her blood on his lips and the veins protruding beneath his eyes. He stands like he was meant to stand over her body.

"Come, Stefan," he says. She watches as Stefan merely stares at the ground. He’s been hollowed out worse than she ever has. At least she didn’t have hope for her family’s survival once Klaus had torn through them.

Stefan moves robotically. She wishes he would heed her advice and fight.

Klaus’ hands are rough in her hair as he plays with the strands absently. She remains on her knees, watching as Stefan peers down at her. It’s with a nod that he seems to steel himself.

"Take a knee." Stefan does in front of her. Klaus moves behind her and settles on the stone, and his hands are rough to move her, knees scraping against the hard surface and tearing as he pulls her in place.

Klaus pulls her dress up over her waist and rips her panties off of her. His knuckle brushes against her slick cunt and she ensures to moan loud enough for him to hear it.

Stefan’s hands are gentle in her hair and his knuckles brush softly against her jawline. Klaus’ finger breaches her and it’s Stefan’s thumb on the bottom of her lip that stops her from trying to slither away.

She pants as Klaus crooks his finger inside of her and then slides in a second. He scissors them inside of her and she shudders.

Stefan unzips her dress and tugs it over her head. Klaus leans over her and presses his bloodied mouth to Stefan’s, smearing her blood against his lips as Stefan’s hands never once leave her hair. Katherine mewls as Klaus slips a third finger inside of her and crooks it.

He presses his hand flat against her back, but Katherine refuses to buckle beneath his weight.

Stefan unbuckles his jeans in front of her and slides them down his hips. She peers up at him and he fishes himself out of his underwear and strokes himself. He looks at her face and sees her, and before she moans again at Klaus’ fingers in her cunt, she sucks his dick into her mouth and is thankfully stifled.

Klaus ruts against her ass and laughs. He pulls on her breasts and thrusts against her so she takes Stefan’s cock deeper into her mouth.

Klaus grips her hips tightly and pulls her back against his cock, dislodging her from fucking Stefan with her mouth. His fingers bruise and leave dents into her that he’s been unable to mark her with for centuries. He comes with a loud cry, panting hard as he ruts against her.

"You can let him go now," she says, panting. She peers up at him from over her shoulder with a glare that should strike him down.

He pulls out of her and stands up, a bark of laughter escaping him. He has everything he’s ever wanted.

Klaus laughs as he watches Stefan pick her up and settle her in his lap. She shifts and grips his cock so she can mount him, and his laughter only grows louder as he watches Stefan’s hands palm her naked back and grip her hair and pull her to him like he’s able to be the hero in this very tragic tale.

She watches Klaus watch them before she closes her eyes and gives into Stefan.

Klaus hovers above them like a god, his shirt stained red with another set of his victims.

*

She doesn’t cry.

Stefan does.

*

When they leave Mystic Falls, Katherine mistakenly thinks she can breathe. But the world only grows more suffocating the longer he stays with them. This wasn’t Stefan’s penance to pay.

In Chicago, Klaus compels them a penthouse apartment. Katherine would otherwise enjoy it if not for the company. It’s the same song and dance as before: she can’t leave, he can’t leave, not without his explicit permission.

She has her own room, although she doubts she’ll come to know it. Alaric’s apartment had been an outlier; Klaus had other plans in mind, another doppelgänger to plot to destroy. But without her descendent lingering as a carrot on the end of a five-hundred-year-old stick, it’s back to his old doppelgänger.

Stefan can hear them. That’s the point. Klaus likes to laugh and moan and tell her what a good girl she is now that she has something to lose. 

Tossing her onto the bed, Katherine crawls up to the pillows and collapses on her stomach on top of them as he sits on her legs. He pushes her down and claws at her back, and she feels her skin tear beneath his fingers.

He presses kisses to her spine, following the notches until his fingers replace his mouth. He’s surprisingly gentle, like the way he had been in 1492. He disarms her easily as he pulls his pants off and slides a wet finger into her ass.

Burying himself in her wet cunt, he fingers her ass and grips her hair roughly to push her face into the pillow. She’s grateful for it so he can’t hear her loud moans. It’s not Klaus she imagines on top of her, but Stefan.

She moans his name against the pillowcase and Klaus laughs as he fucks her with sharp thrusts. His fingers slide into her ass and scissor, and all she can do is cry out for Stefan.

Stefan doesn’t heed her request and come, but she does.

*

Klaus is gone for days. Katherine feels uneasy; Stefan appears like he can breathe again.

"Damon’s dead," he says. He’s at the kitchen, making coffee. He’d forbidden her from making it, claiming her coffee is awful. Luckily for her, she’s already made her batch and has no inclination to make any more. 

She sits at the kitchen counter, wearing pants. He says again, "My brother’s dead."

She doesn’t know what he’s trying to accomplish by repeating it. It’s become a mantra of his, like it’s the one thought that’s keeping him from sinking. She watches his hands as he mechanically works at pouring his cup.

"Klaus killed him," she says. While it wasn’t his bite, it was his lack of care that sent him to an early grave. Her heart aches for the boy Stefan has lost. "And Damon’s dead, yes."

Stefan wraps his hands around his mug tightly and nods. "And Klaus killed him," he echoes, voice firm. Looking up at her, she shifts in her seat as he regards her with a hard stare. "What would you have done? If Klaus had given you the cure to take to him."

"To Damon?" She stalls.

Stefan nods.

Katherine doesn’t fidget on her seat nor look away. "I would have taken it to him," she says, finding it’s the truth. "I care about him Stefan. I pushed him away for his own good and for mine." 

He runs his tongue over his teeth and glances down. His face begins to crumble.

"You can get your revenge, you know," she says. Reaching out, she brushes her fingers against his knuckles. "Turn it off."

He shakes his head. "No," he says firmly. "I can handle it."

She shakes her head and narrows her eyes in disbelief. " _How?_ "

When Stefan peers up at her, it’s with a small smirk. He looks amused. It feels tonally unusual considering he seems split wide open at the seams with grief seeping out of him, but she can hear his heart thud calmly.

"You once told me you sipped vervain for over a century to build up a tolerance, Katherine. Did you really think I wasn’t listening?"

Her lips part and she stares at him. "You’ve been sipping blood all this time?"

Stefan nods and lifts his cup to his lips. "I’m not the Ripper, Katherine. And I’m not running away. Damon deserves better than that. I’m not going to be a victim anymore."

Katherine stares at him in wonderment, her lips forming a smile. Stefan’s mimic hers as she feels hope for the very first time.

*

It’s almost as if Klaus is afraid of her running—or maybe he’s afraid of Stefan taking yet another one of his possessions. He’s a wolf with sharp eyes and a man who lusts for power. He’s seen the way she and Stefan seem to remain in sync. She thinks he can smell him on her.

She sleeps in his bed with him pressed up against her. His arm loops around her neck some nights, other nights her breasts. She’s quick to adapt; she becomes used to sleeping in the big bad wolf’s den.

Sometimes she wakes up to see him sitting on his bedside chair looking pensive and lost. Katherine hardly feels sorry for him, but she watches him in these moments, wondering where he is. Is he lost in the woods of England in 1492? Or is he buried deep in his regret for daggering Elijah?

It’s stupid to think Klaus feels nothing. Sometimes she thinks he feels something other than hatred for her.

Other nights, she wakes up with him pawing at her. His fingers slide up her legs and beneath her nightie, and Katherine imagines it’s another pair of hands pressing into her inner thighs and thrusting into her cunt. His fingers are longer, his touch gentler.

Sometimes, she doesn’t care if she moans the wrong name. She wants Klaus to know she’s not his.

*

It’s inevitable for him to make his hybrid. Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble, she knows he’s close to finding the right mix of bite and blood with a trail of werewolf and vampire bodies left in his wake.

When he makes his first hybrid, it’s a call for celebration. 

He pours them wine and smiles over the brim like they’re a part of his very close party. Katherine smiles and finds it feels fake against her mouth, and Stefan grins in a way that doesn’t glow like he used to.

It’s the second time they’re all together. She watches as Stefan licks at Klaus’ neck and Klaus’ fingers begin to unwrap Stefan like he’s able to find his Ripper beneath the heroic prince garb he still wears. She hates how turned on she gets at the sight of watching Stefan bite Klaus’ neck and his precious blood disappearing beneath his shirt to stain it.

They end up on the floor, her back on the wooden floorboards. Stefan’s fingers dig into her hips as he fucks her, hips tilted up and the angle far too perfect for her to disappear, and Klaus looms over his back, tugging on his hipbones as he thrusts inside of Stefan.

Katherine doesn’t know who to look at, but she grapples at Stefan’s arms and feels his fingers dig into her hipbones hard enough to leave bruises. Somehow, his fingers thread through hers and he holds her hand and doesn’t let go.

*

Katherine crawls into bed one night and straddles Klaus’ thighs. He chuckles and finishes reading the last line of his book as she unbuckles his pants and tugs them harshly down his hips.

"Ever so eager."

"To get his over with." She fishes his cock out of his pants and begins to pump him. She knows she doesn’t have to do this, but a part of her wants to. It’s all part of her plan, after all.

Tossing his book onto the bedside table, he picks her up via her sides and deposits her onto the bed. She hardly has time to pull her arm out from beneath her when he’s pressed up against her back, fingers curving around her hips to nestle his fingers into her bare cunt.

Katherine sighs and thrusts against him, imagining his fingers are Stefan’s. He doesn’t finger her this roughly, but she pretends it’s him nonetheless.

*

The next time Klaus feeds Stefan blood bags, he holds it above his head like it’s mistletoe. Katherine watches curiously, wanting to learn the lines of Klaus’ posture and see what stories it can tell her that he doesn’t want her to know.

Stefan doesn’t look amused. He’s grown sharper over the weeks, his tolerance to blood slowly crumbling to only rebuild. It’s with her reminding him he can do this, that he’s capable of doing it, that he _has_ to do it that has him not falling into the talons of the Ripper.

But she thinks Klaus knows that. And that’s why Klaus pours blood on his fingertips and smears it over Stefan’s lips. And that’s why he leans forward and kisses him roughly, trying to tear apart his resolve with his teeth.

*

Klaus enjoys having him in his bed, his prized and notorious Ripper, and he enjoys it even more when he watches Stefan make love to her with him pressed up against her back.

Sometimes, Katherine thinks he’s afraid of repeating the past. Elijah’s kindness had pulled her away from him when his sharp disinterest had made him turn his back on her.

Stefan sucks on her breast and slides his fingers down to press against the seam of her cunt. Klaus’ fingers are already inside of her, and Stefan slides his in and begins to thrust them. Katherine keens and arches her chest into his face, and Stefan grips her back.

Klaus’ hands snake around her to cup her breasts, nudging Stefan’s face away. His thumbs roll over her nipples to get her to arch her ass into his cock. Stefan’s mouth is on her neck as she palms their hips. 

Her hand brushes against Klaus’ and he threads their fingers together as they grip Stefan’s thigh. She can feel Klaus’ foot brush against the back of her leg as he stretches it over her to try and loop in Stefan, not wanting to go without pressing against him in every way he can.

Stefan tears his fingertips through Klaus’ hair roughly as he devours Katherine like he’s capable of saving her after all.

*

Klaus is a man of many mistakes, but his biggest one is letting her sleep beside him.

Katherine’s wrapped up in him, his arms gentle around her chest as he spoons her. He holds her like she’s something precious, and she knows that it’s not her he thinks of.

With her fingers wrapped around the back of his wrist, it’s not hard to delve into his mind. It’s taken months to pry behind the wall he hides behind, but she gets in. She’s nothing if not determined and patient.

In the woods, she can see a woman who looks like her, with hair curlier and thicker than her own. He’d been gentle with her, a romantic who wished to paint her every single moment of every single day. While he hadn’t committed her to any canvas, Klaus had still painted her in his mind, memorising the sound of her laugh and the warmth of her fingers.

Sometimes, she catches her name. _Tatia._ Very rarely is it hers.

He also dreams of a man she recognises, tall, sharp, broad-shouldered. She tries to pull his name from the recesses of Klaus’ mind, but he stirs every time she tries.

The man walks like he wasn’t of this time; his posture and footfalls land like a warrior’s. She knows Klaus is afraid; his memory and dream tremor with fear, and Katherine can’t help but feel it curl within her own muscles and body and make her pull Klaus’ arm closer. 

The dream always occurs in the woods where it’s far too bright and green and alive. She watches as that man comes towards the woman who looks like her and is smiling, and she stares as he rips her to pieces like he’s a wolf.

"It’s to protect you," he says. Her mirror image only screams.

*

Klaus compels them to stay in the penthouse and wait for his permission to leave. He’s been gone for three days and counting, and Katherine hopes he’s dead even though she knows he’s not. Her wishes never come true.

It’s after she’s tried to get Stefan to drink two cups of blood and not lose himself in it that she’s on the kitchen floor. She laughs for the first time in days as he’s quick to pull her panties off her legs and removes his jeans and underwear.

Stefan’s pulled her dress up and his hips thrust against hers. His cock’s buried inside of her like it’s the only way for them to find home.

He hovers over her with his hand around her neck. His fingers are gentle.

"Is this okay?"

Katherine feels panic bubbling in her chest as she peers up at him and sees another’s face. Stefan’s fingers aren’t as calloused and rough, and she focuses on his scent. It’s become a safety net over the last few months.

Katherine shakes her head. "No."

When he tries to release his hand, she places hers on the top of his. She has to go through hell in order to make it out onto the other side.

She stops thinking when Stefan leans down to kiss her.

*

It’s the first time they’re allowed out of the penthouse. It’s a party (unsurprising—Klaus has been haunting a few of them over the weeks) and she wears a white dress while they’re dolled up in black suits.

For the first time in a long time, Klaus isn’t stingy on the details. This is his celebration. After creating twelve hybrids—a dozen, which he felt was poetic—he felt the need to celebrate with a grand party in the house of his eleventh hybrid.

It’s a big mansion, similar to the Lockwood Estate, and Katherine wishes she could get lost in it. He never lets her or Stefan out of his sight despite the fact so many vampires and werewolves call for him.

Other than to show them both off to a pack of vampires, he’s scoping out the recruits for his new army. He needs her sharp eye, apparently, and Stefan’s a handsome man he enjoys having on his arm for very simple pleasure.

Growing bored with the small talk, Klaus takes Stefan into a room and compels her to stand guard. She can hear him as he slides his palms over Stefan’s arms and she can hear Stefan moan and sigh.

Her feet shift and ache in her heels, but she stays where she is, a beacon dressed innocently in white.

A man bumps into her nonetheless. 

"Excuse me," he says, accent sounding English. He does a double-take of her and she eyes him suspiciously. "You look like someone I once knew."

Katherine furrows her brows briefly and then slips into character. She laughs brightly and warmly and blushes. "Oh—I’m new in town. Katherine."

"Mikael."

All pretences fall away. Katherine’s lovely smile disappears as she eyes him suspiciously. His name feels familiar and it weighs down upon her like she has once been afraid of him.

"I know you," he says, pointing at her. "I know you very well. 1921. Short hair doesn’t suit you, and neither does my son."

He leaves after that, quick and abrupt, like a hurricane that leaves nothing in its wake. It makes no sense for his legend, but Katherine’s too swept up to properly pull it apart.

After the party, she’s on a high. She doesn’t care that Klaus is drunk on his lust for power and the success of locating a pack of werewolves to turn to hybrids. She’s on her knees on the hardwood floor, Stefan at her front and Klaus at her back. Hands tug her dress up to her waist and Klaus rips her panties right off. All she can hear is him growling _Mine, mine, mine_.

Werewolves, Ripper, her—she doesn’t know nor does she care. What’s hers is just upon the horizon, out of reach but teasing her like his fingers tease her.

They’re both in their clothes, pants pulled down over their hips. Stefan looks at her in a way that’s familiar, gaze warm and open and lustful. Klaus had requested he join him for an appetiser, and Katherine happened to be it.

Her knees ache and her pumps are about to fall off, but she doesn’t complain. Can’t complain. Klaus kneads her breasts as he leans over her to smile and murmur words she doesn’t catch to Stefan.

She moans around Stefan’s cock as Klaus slips into her ass, hands on her hips as he guides her along his dick. His hands are big and warm, and she feels his nails dig into her like claws.

She’s never been able to dislodge them, not until now. She hopes it’s until now.

When he comes, he leaves her there again. And Stefan easily scoops her up to help finish her off.

*

When he grabs her roughly by the neck, she struggles to breathe as she refuses to kick out against the ground. Sometimes he likes to push her too hard and sometimes he doesn’t simply care at all. She didn’t think flirting with a few of his hybrids when they were over for brunch was against the rules.

Klaus peers down at her with hunger as he smirks. "Katerina."

He pushes her against the kitchen counter and pulls her dress up. His hips are sharp against hers as he fucks her into the wood. Katherine digs her nails in and mars it in substitute for not being able to scar him.

Stefan’s there to clean up the aftermath when Klaus leaves them for two days. His hands are gentle against her neck as the bruises disappear beneath her skin, as if they’d never been there at all.

"It’s not fair," he says. 

Katherine doesn’t answer him as he takes care of her like she deserves his tenderness. He presses ice to her neck despite the fact she doesn’t need it, even though she knows the ghost of Klaus’ painful grip will last for days.

"I should—"

"You’re not going to do anything, Stefan," she says sharply. She grips his hand and encloses her fingers around his wrist like a tight shackle. "I’m going to get us out of here. You’re going to keep yourself in check. He can compel you to be a Ripper, Stefan. It’s only a matter of time."

*

For a ferocious and dangerous vampire hunter, he sure is tardy.

A sharp knock almost splinters the thick door in half. Katherine pads over to it quickly, gesturing for Stefan to remain at the back of the living room, to stay as far away as he can. She can smell him—the cologne is the same as it had been at that party.

Standing at the door, she tries to reach for it and finds her hand shakes and repels away. Making a noise of frustration, she knows he can hear her. She’s been wearing the same perfume for weeks after that party, hopeful he can smell her on the street while Klaus grows too comfortable in this one-note town.

"I can’t open it," she says quietly.

"Please, open the door, Angelica," he says, voice warm and kind. Katherine can smell another person on the other side and hear a firm heartbeat. She steps back as the door opens and the concierge from the other day smiles at them. Her eyes are blank.

"Thank you," he says. He murmurs for her to stand in the hallway and await for his next request.

Katherine breathes in deeply, hope blossoming in her chest. "Mikael."

He smiles. "Katerina," he says. Looking over her head, he nods to Stefan. "I believe we have quite a lot to discuss."

*

Rumours of Mikael begin to spark days after their meeting and she watches with amusement and arrogance as the firestorm begins to circle around Klaus. Round and round it burns, and every time he tries to step out of its ring, it only burns him further.

She sees it in the way Klaus carries himself, his steps sharp, his pacing turning paranoid. He stops picking out her dress each day and he skips feeding Stefan his lunchtime blood bag as he paces and plots and grows steep into his paranoia.

Mikael, she learns from his mutterings, is meant to be dead. He’s meant to be gone—to sea, to ash, to the next life. Katherine doesn’t know, nor does she care. She watches the way Klaus paces, and the listens to how his racing heartbeat lulls her into a good sleep each night.

At least the nightmares have stopped.

*

Katherine begins to hate not being in there with them. Lately, Klaus has been taking to wrapping himself up in his Ripper as if he is a prince or king who can be defended by one lonely knight. But that knight isn’t loyal to him, no matter how Stefan may smile and play the part.

Sometimes, Katherine thinks she taught him well.

She’s busy making coffee, a task she absolutely loathes but can’t go without performing, and listens to how Stefan sighs Klaus’ name from his bedroom. The door’s slightly ajar, a purposeful act on Klaus’ part, and she can hear them shuffling and almost wrestling on the sheets.

When skin slaps against skin, she pours herself a cup of coffee. Klaus growls and moans loudly as Stefan’s teeth sink into his neck; it’s never the other way around. Holding the scalding mug in her hands by the penthouse’s large window, she lets it burn her palms as she wonders if Stefan thinks of her when he comes with a shout.

*

It’d only been a matter of time for his paranoia to drive him to violence. It’s never against Stefan, his brother in arms, the boy who he is going to one day break into a man and have him terrorise cities and become the Ripper he so admires. When he breaks her, she’ll be shattered. She’s no fun to play with.

She doesn’t know how they get here, but he takes her back to Bulgaria of 1492. Her fingers dig into the skin of her bare arms and she tears into it to try and escape. 

"I don’t understand why you aren’t grateful," he says. He pushes himself off the couch and paces back and forth. She watches from her seat on the couch as the temper in him flares. "I saved you."

Katherine scoffs. "You _saved_ me?"

"Yes!" His voice echoes sharply off the walls. He turns around to glare at her. "I freed you from your gilded cage of familial disappointment."

Katherine scoffs, feeling tears prick her eyes angrily. Her heart clenches and her gut drops, and Stefan’s fingers slide through hers. She grips his hand until his bones seem to crack.

"They would never accept you for your excellence, Katerina," Klaus says. He storms towards them on the couch and looms over her. His precious Stefan is barely an afterthought. " _I_ saved you from a lifetime of being kept under the thumb of a father who would never accept you. _I_ am the one who gave you an identity!"

Katherine knows she’s crying when Stefan’s hand seems to crack beneath her grip.

"I _hate_ you."

Klaus’ fingers are tight around her throat as he lifts her up from it sharply. Her hands are on his wrist, ready to try and snap it in half. It’s the only time she’s ever thought to retaliate; the ghosts of her home have haunted her for years, and she hates him in this moment for acknowledging them. 

The worst thing about it is he peers up at her in disgust with the eyes of the man who had given her a roof and once a friend. 

Stefan shifts against the couch, ready to play the hero. His eyes are wide as he looks at her.

For once, Katherine doesn’t panic. Klaus drops her eventually like the doll he thinks her to be.

*

The rumours of Mikael seem to cease, but a hum remains in the underbelly of the city.

Klaus talks himself into being all too comfortable in Chicago. He takes measures in ensuring the people of Chicago—permanent residents, workers, visitors—inform him of hide or hair of a man who fits Mikael’s description. He hears some tales that drive him to paranoia and some that he laughs with merriment over dinner.

This morning, it’s the former. Katherine much prefers it when Klaus appears knee-deep in it. She can’t quite shake how familiar and unsettling the man who laughs and tells stories from centuries ago is to her. Sometimes, she can mistake him as Lord Niklaus during the days where courting her was the only thing that appeared to be on his mind.

"It’s not who I think it is," he says. "Did you know the last I heard of Mikael, he was drifting down a river with his face in the water?"

They do know. This is the second time she’s heard this proud story.

"People have no understanding of the difference between blonde, dirty blonde and brown. Mikael has blonde hair," he laughs, giddy, "It’s surely not Mikael."

She’s forced to make coffee—a compulsion she can’t quite shake—and she listens to him with boredom as he comes to stand behind Stefan at the breakfast bar.

"There’s nothing to fear, is there?" Klaus laughs, his smile beaming too brightly for her. "We’re all together."

After breakfast, he bends Stefan over the kitchen counter. Katherine has to watch as Stefan laughs and paws at Klaus. 

She knows it’s only a matter of time before this all ends.

*

She’s in Klaus’ bed again, stripped down. He’s behind her, hands pawing at her breasts and legs. He’s moaning loudly and pants sharply, and Katherine rocks back against him, feeling freer in her movements.

Stefan slides into bed at her front. He leans forward and kisses her, threading his hand through her hair. Klaus stirs as if awakened by his mere presence and kneads her breast. Stefan’s hand works it’s way up her thigh, alighting her skin like he’s an ember.

Klaus enters her from behind and Stefan slots in front. She keens and gasps, and Klaus paws at her as Stefan envelopes her back with his gentle hands. He presses his mouth to hers as Klaus’ teeth slice her skin, and while she prays for him not to bite her, he thrusts his hips into her ass, pushing her more and more into Stefan.

She doesn’t know what to do with her hands, so she pulls at Stefan, threads her hands through his hair and lets her fingers trace his lips and nose. He keens and moans, and she focuses on his sounds rather than the grunts coming from behind her.

Burying his face in her neck, Klaus sucks at her skin. His fingers paw at Stefan as he tries to pull him closer, nails digging into his skin to leave little crescents. At one point, she feels him loom above her as he slopes his mouth against Stefan’s, teeth biting at his bottom lip as his hands possess both his Ripper and doppelgänger.

Behind her, Klaus comes and he pushes away from her, slipping out of her as Stefan’s cock still moves inside of her. Stefan pulls her closer to him, wraps her up in his arms, and he fucks her until she’s coming around his cock. He doesn’t let go of her; cradling her against his chest, he kisses her hair, and Katherine can almost pretend the big bad wolf isn’t huffing and puffing and trying to blow their precariously built safety net down.

*

It happens abruptly. Katherine’s quick, but it takes her too long to realise what’s transpiring in front of her.

Stefan’s on the floor, gasping for breath. Blood trickles down from the corners of his lips. Her neck stings from where his teeth had been embedded, almost ripping her skin apart at Klaus’ command. Stefan’s drenched fingers stain the floorboards. 

She’s on the floor, hair askew, tangled up in only a bloodied and torn bedsheet, and the deep bite in her ripped neck slowly begins to heal.

Mikael is an imposing shadow, a monster out of Klaus’ closet that has him quivering and on the floor. In all her lifetime, she’s never seen the big bad wolf so afraid. An orchestra of hearts hammer wildly in the penthouse, drowning out the whimpers from Klaus and gasping from Stefan and growls from Mikael.

"Niklaus!" Mikael roars. The room seems to shake. Her heart is racing so impossibly fast. Katherine sees Stefan mimic her in instinctively growing smaller. Unlike the hybrid, they’re able to hide behind furniture—Stefan behind a table and Katherine against the couch.

Klaus is frozen with fear on the floor. He turns to look at them both, eyes wide, his face childlike. "Help me!" 

Neither of them move.

Mikael pays her no mind. His eye is sharp on Klaus as he pins him to the wooden floor. In his hand is the White Oak Stake, shimmering tantalisingly between his long, powerful fingers. She slowly and quietly wills him to plunge it into his chest.

Stefan’s quiet in crawling over to her and is a warm presence pressing against her back.

Hope wilts in her chest as she watches as Mikael doesn’t thrust the White Oak Stake in Klaus’ chest. She wills it with all her might, but he only looms over him like a shadow, ready to consume but not kill.

"I’m going to make you pay, boy," he growls. He looms over his son’s body like a dagger.

Klaus peers up at him in fright and trembles.

Katherine feels compelled to go to him, but she stays where she is, bedsheet wrapped around her as Stefan holds her arm and keeps her shackled in place.

*

Klaus nor Mikael come back.

Stefan doesn’t cry.

She does.

*

They stay in the apartment three days after Mikael grabs Klaus by the scruff of his neck and drags him away. A part of her is afraid that it’s all a dream. She expects to hear his proud footfalls beyond the door, but they never come.

They’re able to escape—she feels the shackles latched tightly around her ankles finally let go after the second day—but they linger in the apartment like ghosts.

Somehow, they end up on on the kitchen table. Stefan’s on top of her, mouth curved up into a warm smile, and he thrusts inside of her lazily and sharply. She releases a sharp mewl, uncaring of how loud she is. She ensures to press her feet into the table and hears it splinter, uncaring.

The penthouse is theirs to nurture and destroy, and it’s destruction that follows in their wake. She rips at the couch and they break a chair, and when he’s behind her, the bed shatters beneath their weight. They exorcise the apartment of the stench of dog and despair, and all Katherine can do is laugh.

He presses freedom into her skin as his hands grope her. He doesn’t push at her or pull at her; he holds her to him like he’s afraid of her slipping away with the release of her five-hundred-year-old shackles. Stefan holds her like she’s valuable.

Hours later, they’re on the floor. Stefan’s arms are wrapped around her as he presses his naked chest to her naked back. 

"We should probably pack our bags," he murmurs. "Do we even have bags?" he laughs lightly.

She turns in his arms and kisses the tip of his nose. His face is flushed and sweaty, and she knows hers is no better. There’s no desire lingering in her fingertips to brew a cup of coffee, and so she lays with her hands tucked against his warm chest.

"You’re free, Ripper," she says with a smile.

Stefan reaches out to brush his fingers against her damp hair. "Aren’t you?"

Maybe the slow learner wasn’t Stefan after all.


End file.
